Paul Doherty - The Cup of Ghosts

We broke our fast with pots of musty ale. Sitting on a bench outside the shop, I glanced back the way we had come, searching for any sign of pursuit. I could see none, though Ap Ythel had also grown uneasy. He did not question me on what I was doing; Sandewic’s word was good enough for him, but he too kept staring back. On one occasion he rose, feet bestriding the frozen sewer channel, gazing narrow-eyed back up Cheapside. He muttered something in Welsh, but when I questioned him he shook his head, drained the ale pot and said we should move on.

We hurried along, past gloomy Newgate and into the alleyways round St Paul’s. I stopped to admire its weathercock, a huge eagle, its outstretched wings carved out of copper, or so Ap Ythel told me. The Welshman, however, insisted that I did not tarry long, explaining that the cemetery around St Paul’s was the haunt of outlaws and sanctuary men. We reached Seething Lane, a dark tunnel snaking between shabby, overhanging houses, deserted except for wandering cats, their hideous squalling echoing along the street. As in Paris, the shop, beneath the sign of the Palfrey, was much decayed, a tawdry store house with peeling paint and oiled paper covering the windows. It stood on a corner of an alleyway with outside steps along the side, a place a fugitive could easily flee from. I told Ap Ythel to wait and watch. As I went up the outside steps, they creaked ominously, proclaiming my approach. I reached the top; the door was off the latch and I pushed it open. Inside, a heavy drape billowed out, catching me in its folds. I extricated myself and stepped into the chamber, a twilight place of moving shapes. No candlelight glowed yet the air smelt of wax and incense. I glanced at the bed; its coverlet was neatly pulled up. In the centre of the room stood a table with a white cloth, a silver paten from an altar and two small candlesticks. As I stepped closer, an arm circled my neck, the point of a dagger pricked my cheek.

‘ Pax et bonum ,’ the voice whispered. ‘Who are you?’

‘Mathilde de Clairebon.’

‘The truth, Mathilde de Ferrers!’

‘Mathilde de Ferrers,’ I confessed.

‘Niece of Sir Reginald de Deyncourt?’

‘True.’

‘What rank did he hold?’

I replied. The questions continued thick and fast like a hail of arrows. I was not frightened, the grip was not tight and I recognised that same voice, loud and clear, echoing up the gloomy steps of the infirmary of St Augustine’s Priory. The man released his arm.

‘Tell your escort you are safe.’

I hastened to obey, my belly tingling with excitement. When I returned to the chamber the candles were relit and the stranger, dressed in dark fustian, a stole around his neck, a maniple over his arm, was continuing with the mass he had been celebrating. He stood at the table, head bowed, reading the canon of the mass from the small breviary open on its stand. He held up the unleavened bread, a circular white wafer, and breathed over it the words of consecration, then took the pewter cup and consecrated the wine. I knelt before the table and studied this strange priest. He was a youngish man, slender, about two yards in height. He had a long, rather severe face, slightly sallow; his nose was straight, his lips full, the mouth marked by laughter lines which also creased the most beautiful grey eyes. He had black hair, flecked with grey, parted down the middle. When I first saw him in the Oriflamme tavern in Paris it had been shorter, but now it fell below his ears. High cheekbones gave him that severe, rather ascetic look, yet when he gazed at me, those eyes would crinkle in amusement. He offered me the Eucharist, long, slender fingers holding part of the host, followed by a sip from the chalice, Christ’s blood in a pewter cup. After the ‘Ite Missa Est’, he quickly cleared the altar, placing the sacred vessels in bulging leather panniers. He plucked his cloak from a peg on the door, and also took down a thick, heavy war-belt with its sword and dagger scabbards. He looped this over his shoulder, glanced quickly round the room and came to stand over me.

Ah, sweet Jesu, the memory is as clear as yesterday. He was dressed in a cote-hardie with dark blue leggings of the same colour; his boots, slightly scuffed, were tight-fitting. He smelt fragrantly of mint and groundnut. He just stared at me. I gazed back. God and all his saints help me, I loved him then. There you have it! After Uncle Reginald, Bertrand Demontaigu was the only man I ever truly loved! You’ll dismiss such a tale as the embroidering of troubadours. Do so! I tell the truth. You might, you can, fall in love in a few heartbeats and only later become aware of it. On such occasions the heart doesn’t beat faster or the blood surge more strongly. I only experienced a deep peace, a desire to be close to him, to look, to talk, to touch. The schoolmen, when they describe the soul, talk as if it is contained within the flesh. Who says? Why cannot the flesh be contained within the soul and why cannot souls kiss and merge, become one when they meet? The minstrels sing a song, I forget the words, about how our souls are like unfinished mosaics; by themselves they are incomplete, but when they meet the other, they attain a rich fullness all of their own. Bertrand Demontaigu was mine. If he is in hell and I am with him, I shall be in heaven, and my heaven without him would be hell enough. If I close my tired old eyes he is there, serene, calm-faced, with that slightly lopsided smile, and those eyes, full of humour and rich in love, gaze on me. If I sleep he comes; even in the morning, just as I awake, he is always there. I can go through the busy cloisters, I catch a flash of colour. Is that him? On that freezing February morning, so many years ago, he touched my face as he did my soul.

‘Mathilde, little one, we must go. Your arrival may bring great danger. The Noctales might have followed you.’

‘The who?’

He touched my cheek again. ‘Never mind, we must leave.’

‘I have an escort, Ap Ythel, he’s-’

‘Leave him,’ Demontaigu replied, stretching out his hand. ‘I am Bertrand Demontaigu, you’ll be safe with me.’

I clasped his hand.

‘Ap Ythel will be safe too, they’re not hunting him. They’ll leave him alone once they have this house surrounded.’

‘But I saw no one.’

‘Of course you didn’t, you never do.’

He took me on to the stairwell. I never questioned, I never wondered. I followed him out through a narrow door and down a makeshift ladder into the street. He moved purposefully. We left the foul alley, turned a corner, and a figure, cowled like a monk, slid out of an alcove about two yards ahead of us. Demontaigu pushed me back, dropped the panniers and drew his sword and dagger. His opponent lunged but Demontaigu parried the blow from the long Welsh stabbing dagger. Our attacker, face hidden, crouched in the stance of a street fighter, stabbing dagger in one hand, poignard in the other. Both men closed and clashed, stamping their feet in a silvery clatter of steel. Demontaigu abruptly broke free but, instead of stepping back, lunged swiftly, driving his sword deep into his opponent’s belly. The assassin collapsed, spitting blood.

Footsteps echoed, a horn blew. We fled on down alleyways and runnels. Demontaigu, hindered by the heavy saddlebags, dragged me by the hand. I stopped, rucked up my skirt and grabbed one of the panniers. Demontaigu, drenched in sweat, clasped my hand and we ran on, a deadly, fiercesome flight through the needle-thin runnels of London, shabby, filthy places, the ground choked with stinking offal and every type of rubbish. Dark shapes clustered like wraiths in doorways and alley mouths. Whores, faces painted chalk-white under dyed red hair, glared at us; beggars, filthy and crippled, waved their clack dishes; thin-ribbed yellow dogs snarled at us; naked children scattered at our approach. Refuse was hurled at us from windows and doorways. We twisted and turned like hares, going deeper into the slums around Whitefriars, London’s hell on earth, with its decaying houses and hordes of evil ones. They did not hinder us; they believed we were felons fleeing from the law, whilst Demontaigu’s sword-belt warned them off.